Ruby Johnson was at home minding her business in January when a small army of officers confronted her with automatic weapons. Instead of preventing crimes like mass shootings, another SWAT team traumatized an innocent black woman in a wanton raid.
What heinous crimes did these brave policemen send after a 77-year-old pensioner? Did this black grandma need that kind of firepower because she’s the next El Chapo? According to 9NEWS, the incompetent Denver Police Department violated Johnson’s rights and destroyed his house in search of an iPhone.
“I didn’t want them to come in there shooting. I came out, then they asked me: ‘Do you have a weapon on you?’ I said, ‘No, why would I have a gun on me?’ “recalls Johnson.
After Johnson complied with police demanding over a megaphone that she go outside, at least eight cops in riot gear bombarded Johnson’s home. Not surprisingly, the overzealous assault did not result in stolen property or any other criminal activity.
ACLU lawsuit claims sleazy search warrant was unlawful
According to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on Dec. 1, police botched the raid before it began with a botched investigation. Police were looking for a stolen truck believed to contain several firearms, two drones, $4,000 in cash and an iPhone 11.
Check out body camera footage from the failed raid.
Johnson is suing Senior Detective Gary Staab for obtaining the search warrant with a “hastily prepared, stripped down and misleading affidavit” relying on a ping of the missing phone. Allegedly misrepresenting this weak evidence to target Johnson’s home is illegal and violates his constitutional rights, the ACLU asserts.
“On the authority of the unlawfully issued warrant, DPD appeared at Ms. Johnson’s home with an overwhelming and intimidating display of unnecessary force,” the court filing said. “Ms. Johnson went to her front door, disoriented and terrified, wearing only her bathrobe and bonnet.
“She opened it to the sight of an armored personnel carrier parked on her lawn, DPD-marked vehicles along her street, and many men in full military technical gear carrying tactical rifles, a German Shepherd K9 in tow. Ms Johnson was placed in the back of a marked police vehicle and ordered to wait there, guarded by an armed and uniformed officer,” he continued.
In Staab’s sworn affidavit, he said the “Find My” phone app placed the phone in Johnson’s location. However, the screenshot indicated that it rang near Johnson’s house and was not an exact location. That didn’t stop officers from smashing Johnson’s windows and smashing doors.
“Basically, if a device’s location cannot be accurately determined, the user will see a blue circle around the device’s marker on the map. The size of the blue circle shows how accurately the location of the device can be determined,” the complaint states.
“For example, the larger the circle; the greater the inaccuracy. This blue circle covered an area covering at least six different properties and parts of four different blocks near [redacted] Street “
The same old excuses from the Denver Police Department
Although a 9NEWS investigation determined that 64% of SWAT raids like Johnson’s occur in non-white neighborhoods, Denver police say it has nothing to do with race.
“When a phone rings at a house if that phone rings in southeast Denver, Cherry Creek, we’re still going to go get those guns,” Denver Police Division Chief Joe Montoya said.
“I’m not going to question the investigation. The right steps have been taken. The place where this would have been questioned would have been the prosecutor’s office and the judge’s level. And they felt comfortable signing that warrant,” he said.
Despite clear evidence to the contrary, DPD appears to have already cleared itself of any wrongdoing.
“We can always apologize and I would be prepared to apologize that a warrant was issued and no evidence was found in it. It’s a given, but I don’t think anything was done to intentionally traumatize her,” Montoya continued.
It’s too late to worry about the intent of near-fatal incompetence that began with an alleged lie. The misconduct and mistakes behind these SWAT raids and no-hit search warrants have already claimed the lives of innocent people like Breonna Taylor, Amir Locke, Robert Adams and Latoya James. The cops need to be funded if that’s the best policing job they can do with their bloated budgets.
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